count felt it his duty to cast off his daughter, lest she should do
discredit to his noble line. There was a much pleasanter, easier way
out of the difficulty, which the count did not see. Indeed, it was a
peculiarity of all his family, that they never could see a way out of
a difficulty, high and noble as they were. The count only needed to
have given the poor young dairyman a few acres of his own land, and a
few bags of his own gold, and begged the king, with whom he had great
influence, to knight him, and all the obstacles would have been
removed; the dairyman would have been quite rich and noble enough for
his son-in-law. But he never thought of that, and his daughter was
disinherited. However, he made all the amends to her that he could,
and fitted her out royally for her humble station in life. He caused
this beautiful dairy to be built for her, and gave her the silver
milk-pans, and the carved stone churn.

"My daughter shall not churn in a common wooden churn, or skim the
cream from wooden pans," he had said.

The dairyman had been dead a good many years now, and Dame Clementina
managed the dairy alone. She never saw anything of her father,
although he lived in his castle not far off, on a neighboring height.
When the sky was clear, she could see its stone towers against it. She
had four beautiful white cows, and Nan drove them to pasture; they
were very gentle.

When Dame Clementina had finished churning, she went into the cottage.
As she stepped through the little door with clumps of sweet peas on
each side, she looked up. There was the sprig of dill, and the magic
verse she had written under it.